


Oceanville: Prologue

by liberallesbian37



Series: Project Team Beta's 2013 Writing Challenge [20]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-05
Updated: 2013-06-05
Packaged: 2017-12-14 00:36:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/830673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liberallesbian37/pseuds/liberallesbian37
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>College student Finley visits a place from her past to write her senior thesis, but hopes to solve a decades long mystery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oceanville: Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Challenge Number/Title: 20/Setting Be Right  
> Date Posted: 6/4/13  
> Fandom: Original Fiction  
> Rating: T  
> Genre: Supernatural   
> Content Descriptors: Supernatural  
> Character Pairing: N/A

                 _Prologue_

 

                The guidebooks said Oceanville, New York, used to be a bustling little tourist destination. Pictures showed a quaint village with old buildings and happy people. But there were stories passed down generation after generation that told of fishermen who went out to sea to catch their dinner and never came back. Later, there were tales of a giant monster that lived in the water and dined on unsuspecting summer visitors. And even later, when bodies started showing up on land, the monster became supernatural. Monster or no monster, witch or no witch, people went missing and drowned or otherwise showed up dead, and Oceanville became a taboo destination. Once the wonder of a haunted town wore off, tourists stopped coming. With the money gone and the missing person count up, eventually the locals moved on as well. Now, nearly fifteen years since the last person from the tiny fishing community had died off, Finley Owens was spending a week in Oceanville to research her thesis on abandoned communities.

                “Duh dun, duh dun, duh dun…”

                “Shut up, Daniel,” Finley muttered, throwing her suitcase on the bed. It was hard to believe she hadn’t been here for twenty years. The house had been in her family for over one hundred years, and she had visited every summer until she was six years old. That had been the summer Grammy and Gramps fell victims to the witch-monster. After their disappearance, Finley’s mother had vowed to never step foot in the haunted town again, nor would she let her children.

                “Oh, come on, Fin. Lighten up,” Daniel complained. Finley’s boyfriend of four years, Daniel had eagerly agreed to join her.

                “Excuse me for being a little bit uptight right now. Do you realize that over one hundred people have died or gone missing here? One hundred. That’s a hell of a lot of people,” Finley remarked. Even as she said it, she felt her fear melting into excitement. Daniel nodded wistfully.

                “So how’d you get your mom to agree to this?” he asked.

                “She thinks we’re visiting museums in Chicago,” she said with a shrug. If her mother knew where she really was, the woman would probably have a heart attack.

                “What’s the plan for the week, anyway?” Daniel asked, realizing he had no idea what they were going to do in the little, abandoned town.

                “Well, I want to start by visiting some of the old town buildings. Take some pictures, write some notes. There are a couple of places people went missing from, and I want to check them out. But I think I want to spend most of the time at the beach. We have an old boat in the garage and I was maybe going to take them out on the water,” Finley said, unpacking her clothes and putting them in the empty drawers.

                “Does the motor work?”

                Finley laughed. “There is no motor. It’s a rowboat. Motors scare away the fish!”

                Daniel gaped at her before bursting into a fit of laughter. “A rowboat? You’re going to go out in a rowboat?”

                She hit him playfully on the arm.

                “Shut up! And hurry up and get ready. I want to get started. Being back here… It’s terrifying, but I feel like I’m home. I don’t know how to describe it. Now come on!”

                Fifteen minutes later, the two were standing outside the old prison and station.

                “How does a town of three hundred people have its own prison?” Daniel asked incredulously.

                Finley shrugged.

                “Crime rates weren’t high, but they had to do something with their criminals. It’s not like they could take people fifty miles away to sleep off public intoxication. And with all the tourists, there were more than a few bar fights. I guess it was more of a formality, though,” she explained.

                “Do we go inside?” he asked, staring at the doors.

                “Well, I can’t exactly write my thesis without doing a bit of investigating. It’s not like we’re going to get in trouble; there’s no one here.” She opened the door, and it swung open with ease.

                “It’s like it’s frozen in time,” she murmured in shock.

                Indeed, everything was the same as it had been when the sheriff disappeared fifteen years ago. Even his favorite coffee mug was still on his desk.

                “What happened here?” Daniel whispered.

                “He tried to fight to keep the town together. He and Gramps were really good friends, so he would send me birthday and Christmas cards. He was big on family and community. He was disappointed when the tourism slowed down, but it about broke his heart when locals started to leave. He didn’t understand how people could just up and leave their homes, their lives. Then he went missing. I guess it was kind of the straw that broke the camel’s back. The town was empty within a month.”

                “I see you’ve done your homework,” a voice said from the back of the station.

                Finley whipped around.

                “Mama? What are you doing here?” Finley asked.

                “I think I could ask you the same thing,” Abby replied coolly.

                “Are you following me?”

                Abby shook her head. “I didn’t have to. Your aunt is friends with your professor. When she heard about this little project of yours, she called me right away. Asked me why in the world I was allowing my only daughter to come here alone.”

                “She’s not alone,” Daniel interrupted. Abby ignored him.

                “I don’t understand it, Finley. Why? What did I do wrong? You know how I feel about this place. Are you doing this, this, paper to hurt me?”

                Tears pooled in Finley’s eyes, but she refused to let them fall.

                “Mama, have you ever stopped to consider the fact that maybe I’m not you? YOU hate this place. YOU are afraid of it. Leaving when you turned eighteen was your decision. Stopping summer visits was your decision. Pretending it didn’t exist after Grammy and Gramps died was your decision. This? Coming here, this is MY decision. Something happened here, and I intend on finding out. I’m not asking for your permission.”

 

_To Be Continued._

**Author's Note:**

> (C) Megan V--------


End file.
